Earlier this year, HBO’s “The Last of Us,” the popular video game series adaptation, was a massive hit, with over 8.2 million people tuning in for the finale.
The series, which stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, is set twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.”
You may be wondering when the second season will premiere. Here’s the bad news, it likely won’t return until 2025. The reason for the delay? The series’ writers, like many others, are still on strike in a bid to get fair wages. And who could blame them?
HBO’s head of drama series, Francesca Orsi, recently spoke with Deadline. And she had this to say.
“We were looking at The Last of Us for some time in 2025. And The White Lotus was ideally looking to go in 2024, but there’s some question about the timing of the strike.”
“While everything at this moment is pencils down, I’m hopeful that we can come to terms sooner than later,” Orsi elaborates. “Otherwise we will have to assess what is the end of the ’24 schedule, what are the shows that are going to be delivered for 2025. At this point, those shows that I’m looking to air wouldn’t necessarily be ready if this strike lasts six to nine months. So yes, that’s a big question for us, but I think we’ll cross that road once we come to it.”
“There isn’t much that we can go into on The Last of Us, given that Craig [Mazin] can’t really initiate in any meaningful way from a writing or casting standpoint,” Orsi continues. “But he and Neil [Druckmann] have a good sense of what it is that he’s going to be taking on. We’ll be moving the show from Calgary to Vancouver. All I can say is he’s taking a big swing from both an entertainment standpoint, related to the Clickers, but also just the more nuanced, complex character dynamic between our characters, Joel, Ellie and beyond.”
The second season will see the story of the second game play out.
We’ll let you know when we learn more. Here’s a look back at the season one trailer.
If you begin to go through Pedro Pascal withdrawal, you can see him in “The Mandalorian” on Disney and in the upcoming sequel Gladiator II, from director Ridley Scott.
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